apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

excellent!
I'd much rather read about cleaning than actually clean.

In response to Becky's comment, not all green cleaning products suck. That idea is old history. And not all of them are cleaning products. You'd be surprised what you can do w/baking soda and vinegar. I've found baking soda works just as well as Comet, and vinegar does everything from clean stovetops to glass. I don't buy traditional cleaning products anymore--not just because I care about "the" environment, but because I care about MY environment in my home. Why would I want to clean my kitchen with something I'm not even supposed to touch with my bare hands?

abby is totally on the money.
Old-fashioned vinegar, baking soda, lemon and salt (for cleaning metal) works brilliantly. When you need something more, Citrasolve is excellent. You dilute it depending on what you're cleaning.
I hate cleaners with fumes!

Years ago I bought a different book that taught me how to clean using vinegar, salt, lemon, baking soda and borax, and castille soap. I hope this book will be just as good. I save tons of money and my health using this stuff- and much of it works better than conventional cleaners! Give this stuff a shot, becuase you'll be shocked at how well it works, and how good you feel! This week I removed 3 day old Sangria stains from an heirloom tablecloth using liquid castille soap and peroxide and a washcloth. Totally gone, practically free, and I am none the worse for the wear. Seriously, I make homemade cleaners as housewarming gifts I am so converted: and just think, you don't have to worry about having poison in the house for the kids/animals to get into.

Um, peroxide not so good for the pets and youngins' to get into either, though, right?

Just cuz it's natural don't make it automatically "safe."

OK, I'm all for the environment, but these cleaning products work about as well as using a crystal for deoderant.

Those crystals don't work?

I've begun using a wonderful eco-friendly set of products by Melaleuca. And they work very well. check them out if you are tired of coughing and gagging after cleaning. Their Sol-u-Mel is especially wonderful.

A great (free) overview of cheap green cleaning can be found here:
http://www.wmeac.org/publications/factsheets/greencleanhandout.pdf

Becky, there are a lot of good natural cleaning products now. Not all are fabulous, but most are pretty good. Sure, they require a little more elbow grease than Fantastic with Clorox or whatever, but not much--and your eyes aren't watering from chemicals.

This book is OK. I own it and have used it once or twice. If you are already committed to green cleaning, this book is probably not super useful because a lot of it is dedicated to explaining why you should stop using chemicals. Many of the recipes also use Borax & washing soda, which are not always considered "green" ingredients and can be problematic if you have sensitive skin.

Abby and Liza - good on ya!Vinegar, water, lemon juice and bicarb of soda - all you need!

the crystals totally work

I often go by the baking soda and vinegar route, but I still haven't found any natural solutions to really disinfect.

I have pets, and have been reading that one of the safest cleaners to use around them is diluted plain chlorine bleach. Once it dries, it's harmless and as long as you dilute it, it's not too overpowering while you're cleaning. It also supposedly breaks down into non-harmful substances.

I'm open to change, but so far I'm not convinced to give up bleach. It's a miraculous disinfectant. I know chlorine bleach is usually considered the opposite of green, but I'm just not yet sold on the idea that it's really so bad or that peroxide would really be so much better.

Is this really terrible?

Chlorine is really not good for you. It makes carcinogenic byproducts when it reacts with organic materials (such as dirt), and I can't see it breaking down into less harmful substances, since it's an element. But I'm not a chemist. I'd be interested to find out where you read about this.

The only reason chlorine is in drinking water is that your chance of cancer from these byproducts is minimal compared to getting cholera or some other water borne disease from untreated water.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986628,00.html

A 2 in one million chance of getting cancer doesn't seem high, but concentrations of these materials are far lower in drinking water than would occur using even diluted chlorine bleach as a cleaning product. So, why use it if you don't have to? Unless you live with immuno-compromised people, I don't think you really need to disinfect your home.

On the other hand, hydrogen peroxide, while not harmless, is also a disinfectant and eventually breaks down into water and oxygen.

k2:

Thanks for the info!

I just pieced together the very little I know (I'm not a chemist either!) from a lot of googling. From this, for instance, it sounds like chlorine bleach is a very mixed bag:

http://www.thegreenguide.com/docprint.mhtml?i=95&s=bleach

It's certainly toxic, but I still think it's worth keeping around for very limited use, for cleaning up raw meat juices (yuck!), for instance.

Moema, thanks for the article, it definitely cleared up the chemistry questions I had. I don't eat meat or have pets, so I really have no use for the stuff, especially since I've ruined clothes by using cleaners that contain bleach :(.

On a google search, I saw that pine oil and some citrus products can be used as disinfectants. I wonder if anyone has used these?

No need to buy a book, there's tons of info available for free online..

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/healthy-home/nontoxic-cleaning
http://es.epa.gov/techinfo/facts/safe-fs.html

Icky chemicals!!!


...kidding, of course.